This one sat on my TBR pile for way too long, and didn't get nearly the attention it deserves. A complicated engrossing novel, set across a number of generations of a Jewish family, and moving from Israel to Los Angeles. The writing and the ambitiousness of this novel reminded me a little of Isabel Allende. I can't wait to see more from this author.

What to Do about the Solomons is about a family of Israelis. They are people who have come from somewhere and are going somewhere and are never still. We learn about the patriarch, Yakov, born on a kibbutz to Bulgarian Jews, brought up with the strong communist beliefs of the kibbutzim. His future wife, Vivienne, is one of the wave of North African Jews who come after World War Two, who is beautiful and proud and refuses to bend to the ways of the kibbutz women.

Yakov is a charismatic, powerful man who makes money for the kibbutz, and, as they liberalise, for himself. His children move away from their upbringing and work all over the world, and each, in their own way, challenges Yakov’s worldview and his ability to control their future.

What to Do about the Solomons has multiple points of view and shifting chronology. Sometimes it starts a scene, leaves it, and then comes back several pages later. There is no clear narrative arc or overarching theme. Lots of stuff happens to lots of people is about as structured as it gets.

This kind of thing normally bugs me. If the author hasn’t worked out the structure, then I feel they don’t really know what they’re trying to say. However, I reserve the right to contradict myself and in this book, I think it works. It is like eavesdropping on the stories people tell at family parties, talking over and contradicting one another, fuzzy on the chronology or even the protagonists, but each insisting that their version captures the essential truth.

What to Do about the Solomons offers an interesting perspective on Israeli life, and on the changing culture as experienced by three generations of one family. It is irreverent, pacy and very sharp.

Loved this book - funny and tragic at the same time. Wish it was published in the UK!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

This book follows the lives of Yokav Solomon, his wife, and their children and grandchildren, as well as some friends of the family. Each person has their own set of problems.

This book was a hot mess! It constantly jumped around, not just from person to person, but in time without telling you when there was a time shift. Having finished the book, I am still unsure of the sequence of some events. I wasn’t a fan of the writing, and it drove me crazy that the author didn’t use quotation marks when a person was speaking. None of the characters came across as likeable; this just wasn’t the book for me.

Initially I had trouble getting into this novel because of its form, but once I got going I enjoyed this debut novel. All of the quirky Solomons are fascinating and their storylines are revealed through tales and memories of family members. Secrets, lies, and rumors abound from the kibbutz to New York and Los Angeles. Money laundering, love, and scandals both tear the family apart and bring them together. An interesting take on multi-generational family with perils and joys.

A humorous look at the lives of Israelis in America and in Israel. Some distinctions between various families of Israel, with comparisons of Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews and the idiosyncrasies of certain ethnicities. Israel is made up of people from many countries, Poland, Russia, Ethiopia, Germany, France and numerous others. It’s fair to assume each brings their customs and traditions along. Primarily the book focuses on one dysfunctional group of individuals, mostly family or somehow related and the portrayal is so real as to be a biography. Perhaps I find humor having spent time in Israel, such that I can almost visualize some of the characters. It is excellent lighthearted reading with the only detraction being the amount of Hebrew injected into the story. Knowing Yiddish may help to some degree but Yiddish is not spoken in Israel. As there is a generation span in this book the reader is taken from a Kibbutz to American well-to-do lifestyle and back to Kibbutz. A most interesting road to travel.

This is a book about dysfunctional families. As the famous Tolstoy quote goes,
“ Happy families are all alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Tolstoy also mentioned that there were several key aspects for a marriage to be happy. Thinking about what makes a happy marriage and how those marriages affect the children they bring into the world we examine the novels we are reading this month. So from that stepping off point we read about our What To Do About the Solomons by Bethany Ball.

While still here in the present day, we meet Yakov Solomon, and his wife Vivienne. They are patriarch and matriarch of the Solomon family. They live on a kibbutz in Israel and are the parents of five grown children. Keren is married to Guy Gever, and with their children continue to live on the kibbutz. Guy works for his father-in-law. Marc Solomon, married to Carolyn with their three sons all live in America. He is a financial wizard who has found himself under suspicion in a money laundering scandal. Shira is the divorced daughter who wanted to be a movie star. She goes off to America looking for adventure, leaving her 10 year old son home alone in their Israeli apartment, though she thinks he is staying with his father. Dror, married and working alongside his father. Finally, Ziv the first born, who has been ostracized and left the family for Singapore where he lives, in a relationship, with another man.

As the story jumps around taking us from the present to the past, Israel to America and back we learn about the members of this modern day family. Growing up on a kibbutz that now is having trouble staying in business. How the lifestyle has changed, the children remembering the group living for the children, that all for one mentality, eating meals together, sleeping together. Now today how things have changed, they work for a common good, independently. In America we follow Marc as he tries to achieve what he believes is the ultimate dream. He survived the Israeli army training, where he took on the challenge of deep sea diving. This accomplishment, which he felt would make him feel proud and make him feel whole is an important lesson from the novel,
“In Marc’s first lesson that no earthly thing can do that. Not the money and success that come later: the university degrees, the blonde American wife, or the German sports car that takes him downtown where he makes a million dollars year profit. He never forgets the cold dea spilling down the back of his wet suit. Marc’s three blond American children will never understand his aversion to sea and sand.”
He is always looking for fulfillment. It takes a lifetime to understand that substance of ambition is only a illusive shadow of what we thought we wanted.

Following a family – warts and all!

Yakov and his wife Vivienne had five children. Yakov was born and raised on the kibbutz. He has made a name for himself throughout Israel because of the construction business he’s built up – making him a very wealthy man.

The book follows the lives of Yakov, Vivienne and their five children with all the complications and disasters that happen to them.

I was so looking forward to reading this book as the Solomons have all grown up on a kibbutz. At one stage of my life I wanted to experience this type of lifestyle, but then life and its responsibilities got in the way, so I was hoping to relive the dream through this story. I am very disappointed that instead I got a story which jumps from subject to subject, character to character. I read for the sheer enjoyment offered inside the pages. This enjoyment quickly turned to irritation and I found that I had to concentrate on every single word in case I once again, lost the plot (literally!)

Bethany Ball, I’m sure that you are going to have lots of people who will give you five stars and love the way that you structured this work. Unfortunately, I just saw a pile of bricks scattered across the pages with no real thought as to where they should be placed.

Treebeard

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

Another addition to the multi-generational saga genre, but set in Israel. I enjoyed the historical details of the kibbutz life-style, and the Israeli Defense Forces. Unlike many other readers, I didn’t find the story funny, but ultimately rather sad. I did care about the characters, and read the story in a big two day gulp.

I almost gave up on What to Do About the Solomons. At the beginning, it seemed confused and unfocused, with many characters and many timelines pulling me in disparate directions. But I’m glad I stuck with it. As the structure started to make sense and the characters came into focus, I found myself really falling in step with this one. What to Do About the Solomons isn’t really a story. It moves back and forth in time, focusing on a number of characters, jumping right into their subjective messy perspectives on life and how to keep their heads above water. Part of the story takes place in Israel on a Kibbutz, where Avrom and Vivienne lived with their five children. And part of the story takes place in the US and other parts of Israel, focusing on the grown up Solomon children and a handful of people connected to them. These are characters with complex connections and big emotions – they are not particularly likeable but I found myself caring for them and wanting to spend more time with them than this short novel allowed. Ball is a smart and brash writer – she takes a chance on an unconventional structure and complicated characters. But unlike other authors who push the envelope, her vision is not dark or cynical – it’s textured with touches of melancholy and humour. I also loved the setting, and the perspective on life in a kibbutz and modern Israel. All this to say that I really liked What to Do About the Solomons. It won’t work for everyone, but for me sticking with it really paid off. I’ll definitely be looking for Ball’s next novel. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an opportunity to read an advance copy.
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I'm the outlier on this one- I admired it more than I enjoyed it. It's a story we haven't seen before and it's a family that rings very true, even with all the messy ugly complications. I especially enjoyed the parts set in Israel. Ball has a bright future ahead of her as a literary novelist. THanks to the publisher for the ARC. I'm glad I had the opportunity to meet the Solomons and read their stories.

A Jewish version of the "Godfather." This family mixes complexities with dysfunction like a cocktail. Yet, you find yourself cheering for them. Readers be warned, there's explicit language and references to sex and drugs throughout, which took away from the heart of the story in my opinion.

A book hard to put down and populated with characters hard to forget. They are authentic, disfunctional and easily loveable. I loved this book and looking forward to more books by Bethany Ball.

Yakov Solomon and his vive Vivienne could despair of their children. Their son Marc has left Israel and is a successful manager in L.A. now, but has to face some accusation of laundering. Their daughter Keren lives in a kibbutz where her husband Guy Gever slowly seems to lose his brains. Liv, another son, has long fled to Singapore to live with another man. Shira, a former TV star and actress, has divorced and raises her son alone but at the moment she has run out of money and hopes for support of her brother Marc. All members of the family eye each other from near and far, always suspicious of each other, yet, if necessary, they are one family. But now, Yakov is dead and his fortune needs to be split.

There were moments while I was reading I thought: “What a luck these characters are only real in the novel and do not actually exist”. Take Shira. She wants to revive her career and flies to the USA. This isn’t something to blame a person for. But: she leaves her 11-year-old son alone at home. He not only has nobody to take care of him, but he does not have anything to eat either. Or Marc and his wife Carolyn. Her first reaction to the police searching their home is to roll a joint and to sink down into oblivion. Guy Gever who suddenly finds his creative vein after many years in the kibbutz – they are all quite strange and singular characters.

Reading this very meticulous drawing of characters was something I really liked about the novel. None of them is flat or stereotypical. Added to this comes a very poignant language which makes you laugh at times and stop breathing at others. There is some typical Jewish absurdity in the characters and in the novel which make it a great entertainment. We do not have the world on black and white, neither are the characters just heroes or losers.

I feel like this entire well developed family showed up and took residence in Bethany Ball's head and wouldn't let her go until she told their story. So funny, engaging and you just want to keep spending time with all of them!

I cannot read this book. It is not like the description. I do not notice humor. It seems very dark. And the sentence structure is abrupt and does not flow,

Vivienne and Yakov Solomon raised their five children in an Israeli kibbutz. Now that the kibbutz way of life is history, Bethany Ball gives us a look at how the utopian paradigm played with the lives of the children and their parents. This novel is mostly funny as I think it was meant to be but it also tugs at the heart strings. We get to look into the hearts and souls of people who were meant to be the ideal of life in Israel. The adult children have their disappointments but it is in the newest generation that we see what life in Israel is today and may well be in the future.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Atlantic Monthly Press (April 4th 2017).

This one is not for me. I did not complete the book.

Promised to be hilarious should have been my first clue. Yes, funny in the troublesome ways all quirky family members and having to deal with them can be.
It is a family sage. ups and downs, betrayal and support, joy and heartbreak.
It is not my cup of tea, too many short sentences to sound like actual dialogue.

Yes, for sure some funny stuff about Jews in general and these folks in particular. A couple of things did make me laugh out loud. If you are into this kind of book, this is a good one.